Who are the million migrants who entered Europe without
a visa in 2015?

Philippe Fargues

In 2015, more than a million migrants were smuggled
to Greece and Italy, and a similar number of asylum claims were
lodged in Germany. Presenting an overview of available statistics,
Philippe Fargues addresses three questions: Is this a migrant or
a refugee crisis? What triggered the crisis? And last, how can the
crisis be resolved?

At a time when the reception of refugees has become
a key issue in Europe, there is still little information about how
migrants settle in a new country. Using data from the Parcours survey,
Anne Gosselin and her colleagues estimate the time migrants from
sub-Saharan Africa take to obtain a residence permit, a personal
dwelling and employment after arriving in France.

When a person dies, the certifying physician records
the cause of death on the death certificate. In many cases, several
causes are mentioned, as well as the train of events that led to
death. Aline Désesquelles and her colleagues explain why this
type of information is useful for studying trends in causes of death
in a country, and why international comparisons are difficult, notably
because of cross-national differences in the ways medical certificates
are completed.

In 2015, the Chinese government announced the end of
its one-child policy, which had been highly controversial in that
country since China’s fertility had become one of the lowest
in the world. Will the new “two-child policy” bring
fertility back up? Isabelle Attané says it won’t, because
of the increasing costs of raising children and the difficulties
Chinese women currently have in reconciling family life and a job.

Between 2010 and 2015, births to teenage mothers were
more frequent in England than in France, due partly to a lower level
of contraceptive use and less frequent recourse to abortion. But
behaviours are changing. Thanks to efforts to inform young people
about sexuality and contraception, along with greater use of contraceptives
and recourse to abortion, the teenage fertility rate has fallen
sharply in England in recent years and is moving closer to the levels
observed in the rest of western Europe.

While gestational surrogacy is illegal in France, it
is authorized in other countries, such as India. Drawing upon a
study of Indian surrogates, Indian and foreign intended parents
pursuing surro­gacy, as well as physicians, lawyers and Indian
clinic and agency managers, Virginie Rozée, Sayeed Unisa and
Elise de La Rochebrochard describe how surrogacy services are organized
in India and examine the expectations and rationales of the protagonists.

The proportion of women reporting experience of rape
or sexual assault is much higher than that of men. For women, sexual
violence takes place within the family during childhood and adolescence,
but is also committed by partners and ex-partners. It is also experienced
in the various life spaces (workplace, public spaces etc.) throughout
life.

Living alone or with family beyond age 85: major differences
across the French départements

Loïc Trabut, Joëlle Gaymu

In recent decades, the residential autonomy of the
very old has increased. They more often live alone or with a partner
in their own home rather than with other family members. Loïc
Trabut and Joëlle Gaymu examine the changing living arrangements
of the over-85s at département level in France, and the degree
to which regional disparities persist.

Almost a quarter of European women born in the first
decade of the twentieth century had no children. Childlessness decreased
in later cohorts, and among women born in the 1940s only one in
ten, on average, remained childless. In the west, an upturn in childlessness
was observed from the late 1940s cohorts, reaching an average of
15% in northern Europe and 18% in western Europe. In recent years,
the increase has been most notable in southern Europe – where
up to a quarter of the women born in the 1970s may remain childless
– due to weak family policies combined with persistent gender
inequalities that make it difficult for women to reconcile work
and family life.